Lynndie England interview
Interesting interview from today’s Guardian with the woman most associated with the Abu Ghraib scandal. While there’s no major insights, it does show you a more human element to the workings of the people involved.
England’s sense of persecution is so advanced at this stage that the question of whether or not she is contrite has almost no meaning. In the most notorious photo, she holds a leash with a naked man crawling out of his cell on the end of it. In another, she makes the thumbs up sign behind a human pyramid. In another, she grins at a naked prisoner as he is forced to simulate masturbation.
After the photos came out, people looked at England’s childhood for some kind of explanatory episode, an early demonstration of cruelty, or else evidence that she had herself been abused. While Graner, the ringleader and the man who took some of the photos, has had three court orders secured against him by his ex-wife for alleged domestic violence, England, 10 years his junior, barely had a backstory at all. She was, she says, only in trouble at school once, when a boy in her science class talked her into writing a letter making fun of the teacher. “And I apparently left it on the floor in the classroom. She knew the handwriting. I was, like, he made me do it.”
Cowen and ‘Downfall’
I spent yesterday watching a load of these.. You have to wonder if there’ll be a repeat of this at the second run…
The Mirror of Misogyny
Can anyone tell me, what is the mirror word for Misogyny? By ‘mirror’ word, I mean, what is the equivalent word in the English language for ‘hatred of men’ in the same way that misogyny is taken to mean ‘hatred of women’? I know a lot of people joke that ‘feminist’ is the answer, but I often find when talking to/reading people who identify as ‘feminist’ that their attitudes are such, that if they were talking about women they would be accused of misogyny. Any ideas out there?
The League…
… Is a rather enjoyable short film by Kyle Higgins. Though a little bit simplistic in its plotting, and even though the ‘villains’ motivations don’t really make sense, it’s a great looking, well designed movie set in 1960’s Chicago about a superhero union. The link for the film is here and just to give you an idea of the ’style’ of the film, here’s a poster for it:
Saxby Chamblis gropes his grand-daughter
Definitely one of the most creepy campaign videos I’ve seen in a while…
Yoshitune v Jushin Liger
Ridiculous, yet very short match. Watch the absolutely insane movement of Yoshitune. 1st move - jump over the rope, 2nd, over the rope again.. and so on. Absolutely crazy to watch:
Somali Piracy is the Result of Civic Organisation?
This article brought a huge smile to my face…
Some analysts write fearful tracts that the pirates have links with terrorists and extremists, that the chaos is a direct result of international neglect of Somalia, and try to link pirates to the islamist insurgency that control much of the south or the recent terrorist bombings in Somaliland. This is nonsense. The origins of Somali piracy are not found in the southern half of the country, where a “transitional government” is dueling the Union of Islamic Courts with the half-hearted assistance of the Ethiopian military. Somali piracy originates in Puntland, a self-declared autonomous region of Somalia at the horn, hailed for years by policymakers as a model of a stable Somali state. Piracy has its origins in the organized communities of the Puntland coast. In the 1990s, a group of fisherman in settlements there banded together to prevent illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste off their shores. This harmless community action inspired many analysts to designate Puntland a model for Somali civil society. When some ships illegally fishing were boarded in attempts to police the region, the reward offered for the boats return was enormous—amounts that were many times the monthly income of entire villages. Piracy took off as an attempt to gain income from this type of civic policing, and slowly grew to what Kaplan called the “innocence” of piracy. It wasn’t long before the pirates became more ambitious, using the fishing boats they captured to hunt larger prey. And with the money that came in, small fishing towns were transformed into pirate havens. As responsible organizers, pirates have invested some of their profits back into the franchise, replacing barely seaworthy rafts with speedboats, AK-47s with modern arms, and GPS tracking systems to boot. The East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme says there were just 100 Somali pirates in action in 2005, but there are now well over 1,000.
Fascinating idea that the Somali pirates are probably the most organised and representative group in Somalia at the minute….
Batman and Green Arrow: The Brave and the Bold
This looks like its going to be good when it comes out:
Sarah Palin and Terroism
What I’ve always been amazed about is how many on the right wing in the United States never regard people who attack ‘medical technicians’ and doctors who regard abortion as a medical procedure as ‘terrorists’. Nice to see Sarah Palin being called on it.